WASHINGTON - As students prepare for Spring Break across the nation’s many college campuses, one group of academics will be staying inside. Migratory ornithologists, scientists tasked with tracking the migration patterns (or lack thereof) of the nation’s 914 distinct avian species, are fascinated each year by the migration pattern of the Great Whitebacked Colonial.

Each year, thousands of Great Whitebacked Colonials flee to the Caribbean for one week. Seldom do these majestic creatures spend more than five or six days on these islands, participating in an array of gaudy mating rituals and ceremonial meals.

“It’s breathtaking, it really is,” said Dr. Greg Pulltz, a migratory ornithologist at the George Washington University. “You see these thousands of Whitebacked Colonials pouring into the Holiday Inns of these habitats for a week of heightened social activity. We have no clue why, or even what the point of it is. That’s what we’re going to try to find out this year.”

Pulltz explained that Whitebacked Colonials tend to fly in gendered packs of ten to fifteen members at a time. They are heavily reliant on their elders for sustanience during this tumultuous journey, requiring constant monetary care.

Pulltz noted that the illusive Poor Whitebacked Colonial seldom migrates nearly as far, instead tending to disperse towards Wilmington, Delaware to visit their boring cousin Jack for a week.

Not all view the mass migration so beautifully, however. Jessica Winsleberry, a graduate student at the George Washington University, is one such contrarian.

“The Whitebacked Colonial is an invasive species, plain and simple,” she explained. “They come into areas in which they don’t belong, hunt and scavenge for fruity cocktails all week, and then leave when the indigenous population is out of rum. If you ask me, they should all receive tracking implants.”

Despite her enthusiasm, Winsleberry’s “Give Students Tracking Implants 2k16” campaign has not yet gained traction within the scientific community. She isn’t giving up, easy, though.

“Maybe I’m just bitter because I don’t get to migrate with them, maybe I’m not. Who knows?”